Learn how to setup your own podcast in the comfort of your own home. Now you can sound like a pro!

Everyone wants to be heard– well, each day technology is making that more of a reality for people and making a podcast is one of the best ways to get your voice out there. What is a podcast? A podcast is basically a homemade radio-style show that you post on your website or blog. Sounds hard, you say. Wrong! Making a podcast is actually very simple, and we’ve listed out the steps you need to make a successful one. As with anything, you can get the best of the latest products around to create your podcast, but, believe it or not, the basic nuts and bolts you’ll need are a computer, a microphone and a website or blog– even older computers work well and you can also use a blog site’s bandwidth, such as Blogger’s, to publish your podcast. More on that later…

12 Easy Steps to Making a Podcast

1. Listen to some other podcasts. Inspiration is good, so don’t feel like a cheater by going online and listening to some professional podcasts to get some ideas for your own. Take a listen to some of our DT podcasts. Take some notes on what you like, what you doing like, and what topics you’ll want to talk about.
2. Pick a topic. What will your podcast be about? Write it down a brief outline or some sort of organizer to keep track of what you will discuss or promote. This also helps keep the focus of the program.
3. Record the audio for your podcast (GarageBand is good for that). Or you could use Audacity which is great too and free—always nice to hear.
4. ID it! Tag your information (Artist, Album) and give it album art. Either make it yourself or find some free Google images online—careful of copyrights.
5. Save it! Save your audio file (in MP3 format) to your computer desktop. Do not use special characters or punctuation in the file name. Now, go to your desktop, open your audio file into your sound editor and clean the sound up. Edit out extra background noise or long periods of silence. Adding in intro/outro music always makes it sound more legit, so give it a try.
6. Create your RSS podcast feed. The feed must meet all industry standards for a valid 2.0 feed with enclosures. Use a free service such as Podblaze or Podomatic. The easiest way to do it is to use a blog. So, start a blog. Don’t make any posts just yet.
7. Put your RSS podcast feed on the Internet. Go to Feedburner and type in the URL of your blog and click “I am a podcaster!” Configure your podcast on the next screen. Only add elements that directly relate to you podcast. Your feedburner feed is your podcast.
8. Go to OurMedia.org and sign-up there. Then go to your files, and upload your MP3 file.
9. Post it! Post it on your blog or website -make the title of the post the title of that episode of the podcast. When looking at your site the podcast content will end up as the “Shownotes” or “Description.” Write a brief description under of the podcast’s content—make it clever and informative so people want to click on it and listen. At the end of the post, put a link directly to your media file.
10. Wait a little bit. In a few minutes, Feedburner should add this to your feed, and guess what—you have an episode! You may want to wait before submitting it to iTunes or another podcast directory until you’re completely satisfied with your podcast and you have some experience.
11. Don’t forget to ping. Ping the appropriate podcast directories when a new show is updated.
12. Get subscribers and regular listeners. Put the appropriate subscription buttons on your website so people can subscribe to the RSS podcast feed. Everybody wants “regulars.”